Immerse through Book Tasting

Each year at Kujawa to culminate the elementary level education, the graduating class completes a unit of inquiry we refer to in IB as Exhibition. Think history fair type of event and you will have a general idea of the type of work the students go through in preparation for their big day.

This year our new Principal, Kim Jenkins brought to me an idea of a Book Tasting. When I began to look into “book tasting” activities, I realized this would be a perfect way to begin the immerse stage of GID within this unit of inquiry. This will be our first attempt at “Book Tasting” so any advice you have to share would be most welcome!

Our purpose in this unit is for students to follow an inquiry into the ways in which we discover and express ideas, feelings, culture, beliefs and values; the ways in which we reflect on, extend and enjoy our creativity; our appreciation of the aesthetic. Arranging a “sampling” of books that depict these inquiry strands will begin the immersion process.

My plans are to produce a place-mat, a menu of countries, and a note taking page yet to be designed. A buffet of books that relate to various cultures will be on each table. Students will spend five minutes sampling 3-4 books.

The books and other artifacts will remain on reserve in the library and 4th grade classrooms throughout the inquiry unit

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3 Comments

Hi Tara,
Do you have any links to what you mean by “book tasting”? It sounds a bit more like an Explore activity to me. In Immerse we’re trying to build that background knowledge… Tell me more about how you see using book tasting as an Immerse, so I can get a better idea! Leslie

I really didn’t have a clear picture of “book tasting” either when Kim mentioned it to me. It very well might fit better into explore than immerse as we are just in the planning stages. Basically the idea I have developed is to arrange a “buffet” of books that describe various cultures on each table. The students will spend 3-5 minutes reading a couple of pages from 4-5 books. They really wouldn’t read the entire book, just a “taste” of several books so that they get a better background knowledge of the various cultures. This will in turn give them some background knowledge that will assist them in picking a culture to build more knowledge around, develop questions and follow the GID process. Here are a couple of links that I found about book tasting.

Love this buffet of books! Many librarians offer a similar activity, maybe called blind book dating, speed book dating, or book tasting. We have teachers in our high school who like to use this activity to help students choose a book for independent reading. We have fun coming up with different genres to showcase: guy reads, books to make you LOL, books with all the feels, books to make you smart, social justice, etc. I’d like to do this activity with more of a curriculum focus!